Following the birth of her third child, daughter Ivy Jane, Jessa (Duggar) Seewald had to be rushed to the hospital due to complications.
The harrowing experience is documented in the upcoming two-part TLC special Counting On: A Baby Girl for Jessa, which was released on the TLC Go app ahead of its scheduled June 25 premiere.
Videos by PopCulture.com
The two-episode special captured the moments that Duggar and her husband, Ben Seewald, welcomed their baby girl, as well as the scary turn of events that quickly followed.
Welcome to the world Ivy Jane. 💕See the moment Jessa and Ben’s third baby arrived (10 days early!) Click or download the #TLCgo app to watch Counting Now: A Baby Girl For Jessa. #CountingOn
Watch Part 1: https://t.co/bGQqOB9nlB
— TLC Network (@TLC) June 19, 2019
Watch Part 2: https://t.co/kxXf4246E9
As depicted in the episodes, Seewald had been making a smoothie during the morning of Sunday, May 26 when her water unexpectedly broke, 10 days before her scheduled due date.
Her initial birthing plan of welcoming her daughter at a birthing suite in a hospital had ultimately been thrown out the door by the surprise, as her midwife was out of town for a week, not anticipating Seewald to go into labor.
“It was, like, 10 or so days before your due date?” Seewald’s husband asked her in the special.
“Yeah,” she replied. “I was not expecting to go early, I was expecting to go five days late again, we thought we had two weeks left. So our backup plan was to call another midwife and do a home birth.”
With her backup midwife as well as her sister Jill (Duggar) Dillard helping her along, Seewald labored for her hours, making a castor oil smoothie and waking up and down the steps at her parents’ house in an attempt to speed up her contractions.
However, the joyous moment of little Ivy’ arrival soon after did not last long, as things suddenly took a turn for the worse when Seewald wouldn’t stop bleeding, forcing the midwife to call paramedics.
“So she’s headed out. And there’s Benji, he’s getting ready to head out. So they’re finishing checking out the baby and then everybody’s heading that way,” Dillard explained to the cameras. “Um…just to take the baby to Jessa so she can nurse and everything. And then, hopefully they’ll have her IV and all that. Going with the Pitocin and if she needs another transfusion or whatever then they’ll see.”
The birth was scarily reminiscent of the November 2015 birth of her first child, son Spurgeon Elliott. During that case, Seewald’s mother had been forced to call an ambulance after her daughter began experiencing heavy bleeding.
Although the scenario required the new mom being hospitalized overnight as well as a blood transfusion, little Ivy’s birth only resulted in her needing fluids.
Now, mom and baby appear to be perfectly healthy, with many members of the Duggar family sharing sweet photos of baby Ivy on social media.